IF SOMETHING IS WRONG IN YOUR WORLD, REMEMBER IT COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE

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Lev Grossman
Is obsessive serious? *hehehe

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #96

Something’s wrong in your story world. It’s a whirlpool. Who else can be sucked into its vortex? Do it

“Minister Tone? What about Marl’s trial?”

“Really, Larette" he asked with a patronising smile, "My dear, Larette, what relevance would a trial have upon these proceedings?”

He looked so confident. Dependable. I gave myself permission to hope it had all been a stupid misunderstanding. “The trial?”

“Is over.”

“No one was called to give any evidence.” I looked around to make sure we were alone. The speed of the proceedings had been too hasty. What if people talked? No one must ever say that Minister Tone showed favouritism to his son. “Don’t you think someone should have discussed the Rule of Law in there?”

If anything his smile became wider. I could feel cheeks tightening as if I wanted to grin at him too. “To be quite honest, Larette, I don’t think anyone troubles themselves with technicalities like that. Not anymore.”

Slowly, his words were translated from vibrations into concepts in my mind, and I realised what he had said. “Isn’t that actually wrong?”

“Pragmatic, I would say.”

While I looked towards the door and wondered when Marl would be allowed to walk through to join us the minister shook out his purple robe and smoothed it to make sure it fell in perfect folds to the ground. “Sir - You - No one asked Marl what happened.”

He raised his head, nodding and smiling and clasping the gilded badge of his high office over his contently rounded stomach. “Every question we needed to ask was answered in full.”

“No one asked–”

The centre of the First Minister’s forehead peaked into spikes that were so unlike the gentle curves shown by Marl’s lie detector. “Larette, you should stop now. You are drawing attention to yourself.”

I stared around. We were the only people in the gleaming corridor or the Palace of Justice. Somehow, my mouth kept on moving. “Can I ask what the verdict was?” I said, shaking my head.

“Guilty. Of course.”

“How could he be?”

Minister Tone stiffened, his face smoothed into a perfect and unpleasant mask of fake civility. “Larette, love cannot turn a wrong into a right. Democracy is not enough. Only a deep and abiding respect for justice will serve here. Any justice flies above your sentimental grasping for the mythical rule of law.”

Is something wrong in your story world? 

IS YOUR MC HAVING TROUBLE WITH SPELLING?

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Ekaterina Sedia
So, of course, today's post turned out to be long ;)

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #95

Who in your story has been cast under a spell?  What locks that spell in place, never to be broken?  Break it.

“Don’t be foolish, my beautiful girl. I am magic. Magic doesn’t shoot out of the end of my fingers. I can't help myself," Tauran said with a shrug. “The more surface I show – the less I have to wonder if my magic is working. I am my will.”

“So, that’s your answer? Getting naked is the answer?”

“I am all power,” he said. He raised an eyebrow as he rolled up his sleeve. “I’m thinking dull thoughts like road kills and supermarket queues. Can you see the power shimmer? I’m really trying to slow things down.”

Incredibly, she could see. Like heat on a road, the rising power charged the air around him – it played havoc with the light. “Oh!”

“I can’t help it,” he said with a grin. “Some people have to work at their talents. But, the goddess surely gifted me.”

Lyna shook her head, something she wasn’t listening to, or looking at, was important.

“Lyna? What is it? Focus. Am I too turned up full for you?”

            “No. You’re not. This is crazy. Evil.”

He stiffened. “Nothing about magic is evil.”

“How you use it is,” she said, gasping as she realised how many times she’d witnessed Tauran going to work. He pushed up his sleeves to get down to business. Her stomach twisted. He opened a button at the neck of his shirt every time she entered a room. She’d thought it was because her presence disturbed his fastidious, buttoned-down nature. How wrong could she have been? He manipulated her, and he thought nothing of it. Hell, he might not even be aware he was doing it.

“Come on,” Tauran said. “It’s no worry. I love you. If I keep loving you, I know you’ll learn to love me too.”

She smiled, but it was a sad cold thing. “I won’t. Can’t.”

“Lyna,” he crooned as he closed the distance between them. “I know you’ll learn to love me.”

She shook her head. It was true she’d thought she liked him. Now she realised she’d liked how he made her feel. But, he was more magic that man so how could she know what was real and what was manipulation?

As if he sensed her hesitation – which he probably did - Tauran laughed.

It could have been magically enhanced, but he sounded so happy. Probably not for much longer. Her heart ached. It hurt her to think about hurting him.  What was that about? A shudder ran through her. Really, surrendering to this glorious kind of love would be too easy.

“I can’t trust myself,” she admitted aloud, but she really hoped she could. Hope. That was a kind of magic too. She had to find a way to resist his formidable power. After a life-time of neglect, it was time to knock the dust off a little faith. Somewhere inside, alongside the belief that she had the ability to be heard, were the words her NannaJan had told her she was going to need, one day.

But Tauran’s hands were on her neck, running up into her short-cropped hair. He cradled her head. With only the slightest of pressure he angled her ready for his kiss.

Lyna shuddered. The eyes that filled the sky above her were bright. His smile was triumphant, as he lowered his head towards her.

Teeth and tongue, his mouth was open. The scent of him made her head swim. Oh, no. If Tauran opened his mouth on hers, if she tasted him, she knew she would be lost. Forever.

“Lyna?” he whispered. “Say, Yes.”

She pulled her head back, her neck aching, her head full of sound. His voice rang with a bell-like tone.

“No.”

“No?” The fingers on the back of her head became a cage. “Don’t say, No. You can’t mean, No.”

The words filled her mouth. They echoed back from her aching heart. “Rush like wind. Flow like water. Burn like fire. Settle like earth. Elemental Being, I say be gone.” And then, as she blinked, he vanished.

DO YOU HAVE A CHARACTER WHO HAS TROUBLE WITH SPELLING?

 CAN IT BE BROKEN?

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WITH AN UNBREAKABLE TRUST?

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Ann VanderMeer

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #94

Pick an ally of your MC. What’s their shared history? What’s their unshakable trust? Shatter it

“No one wins when two countries convince themselves they’re right.” she said, but even to her the words sounded limp.

Guido glared at a point over her head, it seemed he could not bear to bring her face into focus. “I never thought about nations, I thought about you and me–and did whatever it took to keep us alive.”

“I know, and you did.” Heels off the polish marble floor, Perry tried to stand as tall as she could. She’d never felt so far below him.

With a gasp, Guido doubled over. “So many battles. Scything through fields of men. Wading in their blood.” Guido cried anguished. “All for nothing?”

“No. The power is new.” She shook her head, fervently. Her stomach churned. How could she convince him that her abilities had manifested late? That no allegiance that had ever been important to her could have made her turn them on him? “This – it’s all new. That’s the truth—”

“Lies. It was all lies.”

Perry reached out a hand towards him. If only she could return to the moment on the castle wall. Instead of looking to find that dormant ability, if she’d just thrown herself under downward arc of the sword, sacrifice herself to save him, was snuffed out before the talen changed her green eyes to this unnatural violet, then, she would have died loved. “But, it came out all right. Neither of us were hurt.”

Guido pulled his shoulders back. In that moment, he became something more than human too. He became royal: regal and removed. “At least, stab wounds have a chance to heal–betrayal can’t.”

Does you MC have an ally? What could make the trust between them shatter?

GIVE YOUR MC REASONS NOT TO CARE

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DAVID DRAKE
Do you see how joined-up I can be? ;)

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #93

What does your MC most need to know about him/herself? Give him/her 3 reasons not to care…then tear them down

“The human workers are trapped in the open. You can’t tell me you can stand there and watch while they suffer,” said Rose.

Nyne closed his eyes. “I may take a step away from the window. Maybe put my fingers in my ears.”

“Don’t you care about them?" she asked. "But the wolves will rip them apart!”

“That may be the one time they won’t be insisting that whoever made the mess should remember to tidy it up.”

Rose stared at him in bewilderment. “You have to care.”

“There is no care in Cared For–just so much rejection.” Nyne took a step away. “Care costs about £8 an hour and it doesn’t give change.”

“You don’t care?” Rose held out a hand towards him.

“They taught me well,” he said. His breath hissed through his teeth. “I don’t care.”

“There’s no reason to be mean. That’s not fair. You push everyone away.”

Nyne blinked. He dug his fingers into the spaces between the bricks under the window sill. “I don’t mean to be mean - chalk that down to my Forcefield of Sarcasm.”

“Aren’t they like your family?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said angrily and kicking at the wooden skirting board he stepped away from the window and folded his arms. “I’m sure, if that was me out there they’d all care enough to line for the job of standing shoulder-to-shoulder beside me – hell they’d put themselves between me and the terminal trouble.”

Everything in the old cottage fell silent. Rose frowned. She nodded. “I would.”

Nyne let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

What does your MC need to know about him/herself? 

DOES S/HE CARE?

WARRIORS AND ROMANCE, PERFECT FOR 8 SENTENCE SUNDAY

If you are interested in follow this link: WWW

I didn’t sign up for this week because I felt so bad about not getting around to read everyone else’s 8 last week. Sorry. Watford FC won an important game and so celebrating seemed like a good idea. Alcohol bad.

As I'm only a weekend writer of Romance, Darrah is still having trouble with Sark Hale Tarla. In a time long past in our history, a Sarkisian ship is stranded on Earth. Assimilation is at an early stage but it has not proven to be an easy option for either people. Now, Hale has been assigned to Darrah and her arm of men. His role is to smooth over any diplomatic - or worse - problems that might arise in the Outlands, where the Sarkisians were allowed to settle, when they are sent to find the missing human heir to the Thorn Throne, Erishdren. Rogue Sarkisians are thought to have been behind the abduction.

In this piece I have returned to Darrah. She has been facing her friend, Rylo, the Factor -   second-in-command in her Arm of men – since he touched her shoulder to attract her attention. Rylo is worried. Darrah is still frayed and on edge after Hale goaded her into attacking him so he could prove a point: that in single combat, between a Sarkisian and one of her men, it would not be the human who came out the victor. They were both burned by the encounter.

I missed out a small gap where Hale explains his past, and my plot.

“Rylo?”

“With you, Koman.”

Darrah stared beyond her Factor towards the mountains, around the clearing, then down at the ground near her feet.

Rylo brought his bow up and tapped it against the one Darrah held, armed and ready. “Without enemies, you hone your skills on rodents? I feel sorry for the scurries, already.”

“Never could abide creatures that get the first gnaw on my food. I don’t mind the sharing, but tiny tooth marks push me over the edge.”

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #92

What’s your antagonist missing?  What hasn’t he yet seen, figured out or found?  Plant that discovery.

Hale has been working out what he was missing. 

WHAT CAN YOUR MC SEE?

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C.S.E. COONEY - her advice comes in many directions.
Prepare to remove your
head so you can see all the elements. 

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #91

What does your MC see, know or get about people that few others do? Create three demonstrations of that.

“I do see you, Verda."

"You don’t see me, though."

            Tanner stared at her, confused. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to that."

"I wish you could see me," she said. Her voice was hollow, her mouth turned down and aching, her eyes half-closed and veiled to block out the light. "I want you to see me. 
"I tried to force your sight when the sun was eclipsed. 
"Sometimes it’s like you can – could – see me. I catch you staring and your eyes have that glazed look. It almost makes me believe you do see me."

Tanner's back had become rigid with the force of his will. "And what do you think I should see?" he said defensively. He shook his head. "You’re a girl. I’m sure I know how you-all are put together."

"Is this all you see?" Verda shook her head and sent her long plait dancing.

She released her breath with an explosive sigh. "Why am I bothering?”

"No! Yes. Let me try to understand," Tanner said quickly, unaware that he was shaking his head, no longer even trying to meet Verda’s eyes. "If I did see you, what would I see then? Because, if you’re telling me you’re a reworking of the old species I’ve looked enough for me to tell you I’m sure I would have noticed."

"Maybe… not.”

“I think, Yes.”

“But, your eyes can only see a fraction of the light in the world," she whispered. Her hands were clenched so tightly she could feel individual nails piercing her palms. "And, your brain can only process information from the visible light rays.”

"My brain–?"

“Sees the vibrations red through to violet.”

His heart was racing, even though his thoughts were thick like sludge. “Did I complain that you never tell me anything? The pressure - I feel like the pressure in my head is expanding ‘til it’ll explode – I almost want it to – but if it did then I wouldn’t know what you mean."

Verda’s found it hard to speak; she opened her mouth only to close it again. She wanted to run through her calculations and this time recomputed until the data indicate that telling Tanner the truth wasn’t worth the risk. "This is difficult for me," she confessed.

“Not so me,” gasped Tanner. “It’s a skip in the park over here.”

Her hands trembled. The fact that every part of her body was flooded with positive and negative reactions amazed her. It made her careless. “I am more than–“

“Don’t! I don’t care. I am looking at you. Even if I can’t see the all you’re worried about, I love you. Loving you makes me more than I could ever have been…if I hadn’t seen you that morning in the woods. So, we’re even. I want to belong to you. Completely. If you – seeing everything, and more, like you always do – if you want me too.”

CAN YOUR MC SEE MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE AROUND HER?

IN YOUR WIP, WHAT IS WORSE THAN DEATH?

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Jeremy Zerfoss

DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #90

What does it mean in this story to die? What’s worse than actual death? Have your MC suffer that.

“There’s things that are worse than death. Broken Unloveables who never had a hope of a happy-here; Fading Greys who’ve near-crumbled anyways: those are the states of being that are worse than dead. Who’d want to live the scavenge way when sustenance and warmth come hard? Dead worse is those who’ve made their choice and are a-wanting to be dead but know that soft-death costs. Not finding a way to pass without accompanying pain is only the thought misery, or hunger, forces on Edgefolk. Who-ever would carry this pain into the Nextus?”

IN YOUR WIP, WHAT IS WORSE THAN DEATH?